A federal judge on Wednesday (March 20) approved a plea deal that will send admitted five-time killer Steven Earl Hardrick to prison for 30 years, a relatively short sentence given the crimes the defendant acknowledges he committed. But prosecutors offered the deal to Hardrick, 27, because it may not have been possible to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial -- the case involved inconsistent statements from witnesses and even a false confession to one of the killings from someone other than Hardrick, court records show.

Hardrick pleaded guilty Dec. 20 in U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance's courtroom to the murders of New Orleans Police Department detective Thelonious Dukes, 47, and Dwayne Landry, 25; a carjacking that resulted in the deaths of Brett Jacobs, 25, and David Alford, 21; witness tampering that caused the death of Howard Pickens, 51; and conspiracy to distribute drugs.

Vance didn't immediately rule on Hardrick's plea. She ordered a presentencing investigation and reviewed the findings before deciding Wednesday to accept the guilty plea.

Other charges Hardrick was facing -- a variety of weapons violations -- were dismissed as part of his agreement with prosecutors.

On Wednesday, Hardrick asked the victim's relatives for forgiveness.

"I want to apologize to the victim's family members," he said. He also said he was sorry for mistakes he made in his life.

As Hardrick spoke, a few relatives of the victims stood up and stormed out of court.

"Bulls***. I don't want to hear this," said a man as he stormed out of the courtroom.

Others stayed in their seats but still expressed anger.

"You need to shut up now," a woman said.

"Is this motherf***** serious?" said another man.

Vance also admonished Hardrick. "There's not an excuse for anything you did," she said. "You call these 'mistakes.' These are very horrendous mistakes."

The judge pointed out that Hardrick ruined any number of lives and said she hoped he would reform himself in prison. Additionally, she ordered him to pay $14,175 in restitution to Landry's family, the only one that applied, according to court information.

When Hardrick appeared in front of Vance in December, relatives and friends of some of the victims urged the judge to reject the deal. Many said Hardrick deserved life imprisonment -- if not execution, though the government had said it would not seek the death penalty in the case.

A memorandum filed by Hardrick's attorneys on Sunday (March 17) detailed some of the weaknesses in the case against their client. According to the memo, the government's star witnesses against Hardrick, Robert Hart III and Marvin Pierre, "are themselves culpable and are susceptible to credibility attacks."

Hart and Pierre have pleaded guilty to minor charges connected to the incident that left Jacobs, Alford and Pickens dead.

Jacobs and Alford were taken to the 13900 block of Explorers Avenue in eastern New Orleans on Oct. 24, 2007, after a botched drug deal, and they were fatally shot in front of an abandoned house. Pickens, the only resident at the time on the Hurricane Katrina-devastated block, was gunned down after he happened to drive by as Jacobs and Alford were being killed.

In September 2010, Hart entered a guilty plea to one count each of being an accessory after the fact and marijuana distribution. He acknowledged helping set up the pot deal involving Jacobs and Alford and implicated Hardrick as the gunman.

But early in the case, the memo alleges, Hart said to one of his lawyers that he was the one who killed Jacobs, Alford and Pickens. The memo alludes to the fact that Hart was booked on a count of first-degree murder in 2004, though he was never charged, state court records show.

Meanwhile, Pierre, who pleaded guilty in January 2011 to a count of being an accessory after the fact, acknowledged only being present when Jacobs, Alford and Pickens were slain, maintaining that he was under orders from Hardrick to drive a car to and from the murders.

A week before Hardrick was to be tried in October, Pierre was confronted with a ballistics report that revealed an additional weapon had been fired on Explorers Avenue when Jacobs, Alford and Pickens were killed. Pierre at that time and said he had a gun out on Explorers, Hardrick's lawyers, Robert Toale and M. Michele Fournet, allege.

Pierre's sentencing is tentatively set for April 3. A pre-sentencing investigation report for Hart was filed in February, but there is no information about his punishment in the court record.

Toale and Fournet also allege the government would rely on "the dubious testimony" of Hart and Pierre to link Hardrick to the killings of Landry and Dukes. There is no DNA or fingerprint evidence to back up what Hart and Pierre would testify to, Toale and Fournet said.

Landry was shot twice in the head while sitting in the driver's seat of his car in the 1300 block of North Nemours Street in eastern New Orleans on Oct. 1, 2007. Dukes was shot Oct. 13, 2007, at his home by intruders who demanded money, guns and cocaine.

Dukes died the next month. It has never been clear why the attackers thought Dukes would have cocaine. The decorated NOPD officer for a time was the focus of federal civil-rights and narcotics investigations in the early 1990s, but he wasn't charged.

In November 2007, a man named Chris Dillon was found with Dukes' weapon, stolen from the officer's home. Claiming he was feeling pressure from a police interrogation, Dillon said he falsely confessed that he killed Dukes.

Dillon and another man, Anthony Skidmore, were at one point booked with Dukes' murder. Dillon ultimately said he did not get Dukes' gun until after the officer was shot.

Skidmore was not indicted, and the New Orleans district attorney's office dropped the murder charge against Dillon following Hardrick's indictment. Dillon is serving time in prison after pleading guilty to an unrelated manslaughter. Neither he nor Skidmore participated in Dukes' killing, documents in Hardrick's case say.

"The above offers the defense rare opportunities for a strong argument for (reasonable) doubt and makes the government's witnesses easy targets for cross-examination," Toale and Fournet wrote.

The memo says prosecutors concede that a 30-year sentence isn't ideal justice for the victims. However, they also wanted to eliminate the possibility that Hardrick would be acquitted of the murders.

In the meantime, despite the government's evidence problems, Hardrick knew going to trial was risky, so he took the deal, Toale and Fournet wrote. They added that the deal provided "a definitive resolution to a complicated murder and drug case that (was) riddled with many problematic evidential issues."

Note: Toale on Wednesday (March 20) said there was an error in the memo he filed three days earlier. The memo alleged that Marvin Pierre at one point admitted to firing a gun on Explorers Avenue on Oct. 24, 2007; but Toale said that isn't true. Toale said Pierre only admitted to having a gun. This story has been updated to reflect that information.